5.  The applicant company was set up in 1991 and is based in Sofia.
6.  In 1989 State-owned enterprise B. (later a State-owned company), took out a bank loan, which it failed to pay back. In 1994 the Ministry of Finance and the creditor bank signed an agreement whereby the State took over the debt, providing the bank with State-issued bonds.
7.  Subsequently company B. was succeeded by the applicant company, which apparently undertook to pay back the loan to the State.
8.  On 5 July 2000 the director of the State Receivables Collection Agency issued an assessment which found that on 1 May 2000 the applicant company owed the State more than 4,000,000 United States dollars (USD), equalling the principal of the 1989 loan plus interest.
9.  On 21 July 2000 the applicant company brought an action for a declaratory judgment to the effect that it did not owe this sum, as the debt had become statute-barred. In a judgment of 5 June 2003 the Sofia City Court allowed the action. On 18 November 2003 the Sofia Court of Appeal affirmed this decision. Both courts awarded the applicant company the costs it had incurred in the proceedings.
10.  In November 2003 the applicant company took a decision to move its registered office, which had until then been in Asenovgrad, to Sofia. A new managing director was also appointed. Those changes were entered in the company register on 18 December 2003.
11.  In the civil proceedings, on an appeal by the State Receivables Collection Agency, in a final judgment of 22 June 2004 the Supreme Court of Cassation (“the SCC”) upheld the lower courts’ judgments. In the minutes of the hearing held before it on 14 June 2004 it was indicated that the applicant party was Askon AD Sofia.
12.  However, the SCC refused to award the applicant company the costs claimed for the cassation proceedings, as it considered that those costs, amounting to USD 256,717, had been incurred by the company Askon AD based in Sofia, which had signed the contract for legal representation and the relevant invoices, and not the claimant, Askon AD based in Asenovgrad. The SCC noted also that, according to the documents in the file, Askon AD based in Sofia and Askon AD based in Asenovgrad were represented by different managing directors.
13.  On 28 June 2004 the applicant company made a request under Article 192 § 4 of the Code of Civil Procedure, in force at the time (see paragraph 17 below), that the judgment of 22 June 2004 be amended and it be awarded the costs it had incurred in the cassation proceedings. It pointed out that the costs in question had been incurred by itself and not by another company, and presented evidence establishing that its registered office had been transferred to Sofia and that a new managing director had been elected. It noted that the authority form submitted by its counsel to the SCC, which had been accepted, had been signed by Askon AD based in Sofia and represented by its new managing director. The applicant company considered also that it was clear from other data, such as its taxation and registration numbers indicated on numerous documents in the case file, that Askon AD based in Sofia and Askon AD based in Asenovgrad were one and the same company.
14.  By a decision of 16 September 2004 the SCC dismissed the request to amend its judgment, holding that it could not take into account the newly presented evidence about the change in the applicant company’s particulars, because a party which had failed to establish certain circumstances in the course of the main proceedings could not make up for that failure in later proceedings under Article 192 § 4 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
15.  Throughout the civil proceedings all summons and notifications were served on the applicant company’s counsel.